Light and Blooms

  There are a few areas of the house that don't necessarily have any other function other than practicality. That would be the Laundry Room. I have been fortunate that the last few houses we have lived in had a separate laundry room. This makes for a nicely defined space, but it can also cause problems if the space becomes a catchall for miscellaneous items that do not "fit" anywhere else. This causes a crowding in an area that is designed for a specific purpose- laundry! When moving into this new home recently, I decided to break any bad habits of overcrowding the area. Since I was starting with a blank slate, I chose carefully what would go into this space. Even though I stated that this area is for practicality, I still went for an aesthetically pleasing look. As you will see in the photos, I corral many items in baskets and see through jars. I also incorporated the height I have in 10 foot ceilings so I can take advantage of storage space available.

  One of the areas I am evaluating in the Kitchen are my pots and pans. Specifically the frying pans. I am happy with how they are being stored. The cabinets accommodate them well. See photo below. What I am in the process of doing is replacing those that are not performing well. Whether it be heat distribution, non stick properties or size and frequency of use, all are under my scrutinizing eye! I have now replaced the largest pan with a cast iron 12" size. The weight of the cast iron distributes the heat evenly. The clean up is easy and it is non stick. I am finding I am cooking everything from eggs to chili to fish in this one pan. The next area to be evaluated were my utensils. Like many of you, I have way too many large cooking utensils at my finger tips and yet routinely reached for the same favorites time and time again. When your utensils have to be dusted periodically, its time to evaluate their usefulness! I do like to have my common cooking tools handy

So I left off my Alphabet Organizing Challenge way back in November. What happened? Where have I been? What have I been doing? This is the short version... Soon after my last post the homeowners of the house we were renting told us they were putting the house on the market to sell. Thus began the race to find a new place to move, pack up and go. Right after the new year, the house was photographed, listed and ready to show. We found a new place to live, just minutes from where we lived. Arrangements were made for the move. We packed, we purged, we sold, we donated, we planned and we kept going. It was a monster job in the midst of a very busy personal time in our lives. But we persevered and kept a good attitude and accomplished the task. Over a period of 10 days we shuttled our stuff from one house to the other. On March 31st we laid our heads down in our new home. Can you guess what I have been doing ever since? Unpacking and placing our possessions in our new home. Bec